Helen Keller, the deaf and blind activist was asked by a journalist what she thought would be worse than being born blind? Without missing a beat, she replied “to have sight and no vision.”

Nearly fifteen years after its inception, Highland City Club is finally a social and business success. Every lunch is so packed and the dining room’s energy level so high, the excitement is palpable. So is it time to rest on our laurels and call it good, or should we strive to go from good too great? Should we continue to eat, drink and make more money, or is there more to our original and idealistic vision of making a small dent in the universe?

As we enter the holiday season, I want to thank all our tenants, members, friends, family and dedicated employees, past and present, who collectively make up the Highland City Club community, for your continued belief in our vision, and your moral and financial support to date.

To prevent stagnation and ensure the continued growth of our community, after months of planning and discussions with all stakeholders, we plan to incorporate the following changes effective first of the new year.

After 44-years of 24/7 entrepreneurship, I am planning to step into the role of Chairman, mentor and advisor, allowing my son Dustin to deal with the day to day logistics of managing Highland City Club. Trained as an engineer, I understand the importance of technology, social media and design, so I have asked Dustin to take a design-forward approach to overseeing the operation of City Club. This transition will be slow and steady to ensure its success for Dustin and City Club.

After ten years of dedicated service, Maria Cooper, City Club's beloved chef will resign her position at the end of the year to fully devote her time to her nourishment coaching practice. It is not an exaggeration to say in the past decade Maria put City Club’s food on the map, and in return we helped Maria grow and prosper. The closest experience I have to this bittersweet experience is marrying off my daughter. We are pleased to announce that Tyler Crawford who has trained under Maria for over two years will take over Maria's position, with support from Lisa, Carlos, Matt and others who we plan to hire to expand our food offering to breakfast and various themed dinners.

In her short stint with us, Nathalie Wilson, our fun-loving and creative Sommelier and Front of the House manager, gave hundreds of tours and signed up tens of new members, while breathing life into the beautiful but stale wine cellar she found upon her arrival last year. Nathalie is no longer with us, but we are pleased to announce that effective first of the new year Catherine Walker will begin as the Club’s new Director of Member Relations and Sommelier.

We are proud to have maintained our Social members’ monthly dues constant at $110 for the past decade, but now that we have quadrupled the size of the club’s facilities and gardens, requiring sixteen total employees to operate Highland City Club, we plan to raise our dues to $125/m to better reflect the cost and value of membership. Also, effective May 1, 2020, per the previous announcement on this topic, all the initial Business membership dues will increase to the current $400/m.

We believe food is the glue that keeps our community together, so we have always heavily subsidized the cost of our lunches and social events to help engrain this cultural standard. We estimate the direct labor and material cost of our lunch (not including overhead which is covered by dues) at ~$30. Going forward, the cost of lunch for a member and up to three guests will increase from $16 to $17.50, and $24/person for groups of five and more.

To better serve our members and minimize food waste, we will cook food to our current kitchen’s capacity to serve 60 members and tenants each day, and will give priority to members who RSVP in advance. Under this plan, members who have made an advance reservation for lunch will go through the lunch line from 12:00 pm to 12:20 pm, after which any member can go through the lunch line on a first-come-first-serve basis till we run out of food. Until we build our new walk-in fridge and secure the required permits to expand our kitchen into the spa area, this is the best plan we were able to come up with to best serve the most number of members and their guests.

Each Business member is currently allowed to book any of our five conference rooms (not including the Library) for up to four hours a month for free (six hours for tenants). Going forward, all groups of six or more are required to book a private conference room to meet for business meetings and lunches. City Club’s current App makes this process easy and seamless, so please help us better manage the use of our current conference rooms.

After three years of trial and error, our Parking system is fully operational, so we ask all members to be aware of the current parking charges that will automatically appear on your monthly invoice (also available to be viewed within the App 48 hours after the charge is incurred).

We gave our gardens a big push this year and were thrilled to see our seventeen new outdoor tables and 74 chairs well used. All City Club tables, indoor and out, are for community use unless reserved in advance. So when you use your app to make a lunch reservation for you and your guests, please indicate whether you need a private table and we will do our very best to reserve one for you.

The third floor co-working area is now a quiet zone subject to “Library Rules.” City Club staff will monitor this floor’s use to make sure the kitchen, snacks, and cappuccino machine are always clean, stocked and organized, and will enforce rules regarding noise and phone/conference room use.

We are Bob Dylan fans who believe “he who ain’t busy being born is busy dying,” so we look forward to the potential of the new year and hope our proposed changes, staffing upgrades and new construction projects can continue our long-held tradition of constantly reinventing ourselves.

— Sina.